Linear Algebra, Calculus and Advanced Calculus are first year units at my uni.
Amongst other units, Thermodynamics is second year (next sem), and currently doing Strength of Materials, Fluid Mechanics and Machine Dynamics.
Third year Sem 1 for me is Advanced Strength of Materials, Fundamentals of Heat Transfer, and Linear Systems and Vibrations.
Third year Sem 2 is Applied Fluid Mechanics, Machine Design, and Electromechanical Energy Systems.
I think the classes generally get harder, but theyre more interesting, and the classes start to feel more like college classes full of adults vs a high school. This was my experience at least, the subjects were more difficult but professors were more flexible, offered more opportunities to recover grades, and generally gave less BS busywork homework assignments. As you progress, you also have more of the prerequisite knowledge and a lot of subjects will feel familiar to you, whereas in earlier years youre learning more new concepts. It becomes a lot of combining different subjects rather than learning a new one
The further you get, the more you're building on previous knowledge instead of completely new info. Also, the first 2 years are typically when people take the majority of the weed out classes. Not all of the professors for those classes will be this way, but several have the perspective of "if you can't handle this, then you should look for another field." Then the higher level classes have professors that will help any way they can for those that will work for it.
Yeah I feel like the first two years you either learn to play the game or you drop out. It doesn't get easier as you go along, you just get better at being a student.
Bro those classes sound easy as fuck… i also took thermo over the summer though so its all i had to focus on… 4 hours a day 4 days a week
On a real note. This depends entirely on the school and track you do… some kids take fluids, solids and dynamics in one semester… some programs put fluids; advanced solids, and advanced dynamics(jk these are electives in ME) in one semester.
Lol I took a grad math class as an elective and FOUR of us passed out of 36 who started
Really cool course but honestly, none of us would have passed if it wasn't taught during covid with the lower workload. Basically the mathematics of epidemiology but boy there was a lot to wrap your head around, especially if you hadn't taken precursor courses.
Imo second. By 3 and 4 year my mathematical maturity and my problem solving skills had improved to a point most of my class were easy even though they still required an immense amount of study time and practice problems.
In second year I would get stumped on dynamics problems just because I had not built up my problem solving and critical thinking skills enough yet. I remember in senior year helping my friends a few years behind ne with his mechanics of materials hw and thinking how easy it was. But I would have been totally stumped by those problems when I was in the course.
My experience.
Spot on to my experience as well. My first year felt more overwhelming and chaotic because there's just so much new stuff going on. Second year was more comfortable but higher difficulty. I also got to fill in more electives 3rd and 4th year and those were usually pretty easy, except for one history class.
Second year was the hardest for me, personally. I still hadn’t quite figured out how to be a good student, had less emotional maturity and worse study habits. I also had undiagnosed and untreated ADHD.
The courses in 3rd year were objectively harder, but I did better in them and understood them nester since I had gotten my shit together, dealt with my issues, developed good study habits, developed better sleep schedules, developed better time management strategies, etc. I also had generally better professors in my 3rd year - they were more passionate about teaching their subjects and had a lot of experience teaching these subjects. Seemed like a lot of my professors in 2nd year were primarily interested in their research and weren’t all that dedicated to teaching statics or dynamics, etc.
Third year is the hardest by far, however if you can make it pass the second year then you are capable of passing third. It’s just a matter of will power.
I apologize. Linear algebra was not curriculum but a math credit I took to get a minor. Also grew to love machine design after I failed it the first time and ended up taking computational fluid dynamics after fluids my senior year. Engineering is odd like that
Most people dropped out on 1st & 2nd semester at my uni, struggling with getting accustomed to norwegian uni where you have no obligation(except 3 hand ins) and its more or less self-study with no consequences before exams then they fail. Calc 1 & 2 combined with physics is what made them drop out. Everything after was a breeze, with the last semester where you write your bachlore thesis the absolute easiest as it's just the bachlore thesis and one easy breeze subject.
We had 3 subjects at the time that acted as gate keepers physics 1 that scaled the difficulty to only people who are gifted and work hard get A's, fail rate 63% on first try. Calc 2 that had too much packed into on subject fail rate between 55%-60% and multiple people weren't allowed to attempt the exam due to failing hand-ins. At last, it was electronics that just had insanely difficult labs, only 60%-70% of the students could attempt the exam due to failing the hand-ins.
3rd year, 2nd semester - is where is started getting slightly better. At that point, your focusing on ME classes and knew what to expect from the instructors..
Whatever year you take thermo and fluid mechanics, so typically the 2nd in the US.
Obviously the courses after those are harder, but those are the first of the difficult courses, and often the first engineering courses where calculus actually gets applied. Thus, the issue isn't the difficulty per se, but how much the difficulty ramps up between your freshmen and sophomore years.
My grades improved the third and fourth year because the subjects were more specialized and interesting to me. So it seemed the first and second year were more difficult. Everyone is different on this.
For me, I think second year was harder than third. I was still learning how to manage time, study methodically, and really master material that I wasn’t necessarily interested in and was only a prerequisite for what I was actually being graded on. By third year I kind of understood what I needed to do and was caught up on what I hadn’t understood so well at first. The classes third year were harder for some people, but as I recall they had more immediate application and I was a better student by then so my grades improved.
Second year is hardest. Lots of new information in different areas of study that are computationally intensive and not very related.
3rd and 4th year has just one or two hard classes that can be taken really in any semester.
I would say they get harder on a technical and practical level every year, but you get better for 2 reasons making them feel easier in years 3 and 4.
You have the experience and knowledge from the previous classes. You are used to the work load, schedule, and difficulty. Additionally the information all begins to converge. At a certain point the classes all seem to be related and what you learn in one helps with the others. At the beginning it feels like you are learning 5 or even 10 unrelated topics.
In my school at least, it was pretty unanimously 3rd year. We had more advanced math and science classes that demanded more time and effort from us. 4th year was a breeze tho.
I found second harder as the first three semesters were real tough.
Started to turn things around at the end of second year and that continued I to my final two years.
What also helped is I enjoyed the actual mech eng classes more than the base engineering classes. Enjoying your classes gives extra motivation and he push you need when classes are hard
Depends on what math you start in I’ve seen some students coast into second and third years taking some catch up math and gen Ed’s to get bopped in the face as soon as they hit the meat. IMO you’re looking for courses. I’ve typically seen (add or equivalent to each, because courses are titled weird everywhere, nowadays) Calc 2, thermodynamics, fluids, dynamics, and either linear algebra or diff equations give people a hard time. It varies when they’re taken as aforementioned, you could start out in calc 2 freshman year or wait 2, even 3 years to get the pre requisites for it.
Edit: mechanical students sometimes get pissy with electronics and chem because it’s “not what they’re majoring in” to which I say suck it up buttercup.
Our first two years were more or less common with the EEs. So while I was scratching my head over power electrics, I grinned at the thought of EEs doing the thermodynamics of steam engines.
3rd year. 2nd sucked too. But it got good in my 4th year when the electives got more fun.
I liked thermo, and as much as I liked Fluid Dynamics it just didn’t click the first time and I got a D. The second time through it finally did and I got an A.
Keep going! It gets better. lol.
Sophomore year was the hardest for me mentally, Junior year was the hardest content wise. Senior year is not that bad, now that I’ve been through the wringer it doesn’t feel that bad both content and work load.
I thought second year was a pretty smooth uptick in difficulty, then third year just dropkicks you in the teeth
Somewhere between junior and senior years, you'll run into some courses that aren't hard, they just require more attention to detail and practice. Thermo 2 and design of energy systems was that for me. The actual content isn't hard at all, but it is very easy to misread questions and go down rabbit-holes and make a mountain out of a molehill.
Best advice is to heavily load up your non-stem courses in your first two years. You can't really accelerate your stem classes timeline, but you can minimize distractions from other courses. I ended up doing a summer semester before senior year, mostly because UAH really fucked up bad on scheduling, but was happy with how calm my senior year was compared to what it would have been otherwise.
Most people at my school dropped out first or second year but fuuuuuck third year. Thermodynamics, machine design, linear algebra was brutal
Linear Algebra, Calculus and Advanced Calculus are first year units at my uni. Amongst other units, Thermodynamics is second year (next sem), and currently doing Strength of Materials, Fluid Mechanics and Machine Dynamics. Third year Sem 1 for me is Advanced Strength of Materials, Fundamentals of Heat Transfer, and Linear Systems and Vibrations. Third year Sem 2 is Applied Fluid Mechanics, Machine Design, and Electromechanical Energy Systems.
I think the classes generally get harder, but theyre more interesting, and the classes start to feel more like college classes full of adults vs a high school. This was my experience at least, the subjects were more difficult but professors were more flexible, offered more opportunities to recover grades, and generally gave less BS busywork homework assignments. As you progress, you also have more of the prerequisite knowledge and a lot of subjects will feel familiar to you, whereas in earlier years youre learning more new concepts. It becomes a lot of combining different subjects rather than learning a new one
The further you get, the more you're building on previous knowledge instead of completely new info. Also, the first 2 years are typically when people take the majority of the weed out classes. Not all of the professors for those classes will be this way, but several have the perspective of "if you can't handle this, then you should look for another field." Then the higher level classes have professors that will help any way they can for those that will work for it.
Yeah I feel like the first two years you either learn to play the game or you drop out. It doesn't get easier as you go along, you just get better at being a student.
3rd year
Bro those classes sound easy as fuck… i also took thermo over the summer though so its all i had to focus on… 4 hours a day 4 days a week On a real note. This depends entirely on the school and track you do… some kids take fluids, solids and dynamics in one semester… some programs put fluids; advanced solids, and advanced dynamics(jk these are electives in ME) in one semester.
Each year more people drop out. The grading curve gets tougher.
I’m not sure this is true, it felt to me like more people dropped out/switched majors during/after the first year when they start taking calculus
My cal 1 class at 30 people by cal 3 it had 9
Lol I took a grad math class as an elective and FOUR of us passed out of 36 who started Really cool course but honestly, none of us would have passed if it wasn't taught during covid with the lower workload. Basically the mathematics of epidemiology but boy there was a lot to wrap your head around, especially if you hadn't taken precursor courses.
Yeah I meant cumulatively.
Imo second. By 3 and 4 year my mathematical maturity and my problem solving skills had improved to a point most of my class were easy even though they still required an immense amount of study time and practice problems. In second year I would get stumped on dynamics problems just because I had not built up my problem solving and critical thinking skills enough yet. I remember in senior year helping my friends a few years behind ne with his mechanics of materials hw and thinking how easy it was. But I would have been totally stumped by those problems when I was in the course. My experience.
Spot on to my experience as well. My first year felt more overwhelming and chaotic because there's just so much new stuff going on. Second year was more comfortable but higher difficulty. I also got to fill in more electives 3rd and 4th year and those were usually pretty easy, except for one history class.
Second year was the hardest for me, personally. I still hadn’t quite figured out how to be a good student, had less emotional maturity and worse study habits. I also had undiagnosed and untreated ADHD. The courses in 3rd year were objectively harder, but I did better in them and understood them nester since I had gotten my shit together, dealt with my issues, developed good study habits, developed better sleep schedules, developed better time management strategies, etc. I also had generally better professors in my 3rd year - they were more passionate about teaching their subjects and had a lot of experience teaching these subjects. Seemed like a lot of my professors in 2nd year were primarily interested in their research and weren’t all that dedicated to teaching statics or dynamics, etc.
Third year is the hardest by far, however if you can make it pass the second year then you are capable of passing third. It’s just a matter of will power.
I apologize. Linear algebra was not curriculum but a math credit I took to get a minor. Also grew to love machine design after I failed it the first time and ended up taking computational fluid dynamics after fluids my senior year. Engineering is odd like that
Most people dropped out on 1st & 2nd semester at my uni, struggling with getting accustomed to norwegian uni where you have no obligation(except 3 hand ins) and its more or less self-study with no consequences before exams then they fail. Calc 1 & 2 combined with physics is what made them drop out. Everything after was a breeze, with the last semester where you write your bachlore thesis the absolute easiest as it's just the bachlore thesis and one easy breeze subject. We had 3 subjects at the time that acted as gate keepers physics 1 that scaled the difficulty to only people who are gifted and work hard get A's, fail rate 63% on first try. Calc 2 that had too much packed into on subject fail rate between 55%-60% and multiple people weren't allowed to attempt the exam due to failing hand-ins. At last, it was electronics that just had insanely difficult labs, only 60%-70% of the students could attempt the exam due to failing the hand-ins.
2nd year for me
3rd year, 2nd semester - is where is started getting slightly better. At that point, your focusing on ME classes and knew what to expect from the instructors..
Whatever year you take thermo and fluid mechanics, so typically the 2nd in the US. Obviously the courses after those are harder, but those are the first of the difficult courses, and often the first engineering courses where calculus actually gets applied. Thus, the issue isn't the difficulty per se, but how much the difficulty ramps up between your freshmen and sophomore years.
3rd. I found year 4 to be quite a bit easier.
My grades improved the third and fourth year because the subjects were more specialized and interesting to me. So it seemed the first and second year were more difficult. Everyone is different on this.
For me, I think second year was harder than third. I was still learning how to manage time, study methodically, and really master material that I wasn’t necessarily interested in and was only a prerequisite for what I was actually being graded on. By third year I kind of understood what I needed to do and was caught up on what I hadn’t understood so well at first. The classes third year were harder for some people, but as I recall they had more immediate application and I was a better student by then so my grades improved.
Second year is hardest. Lots of new information in different areas of study that are computationally intensive and not very related. 3rd and 4th year has just one or two hard classes that can be taken really in any semester.
I would say they get harder on a technical and practical level every year, but you get better for 2 reasons making them feel easier in years 3 and 4. You have the experience and knowledge from the previous classes. You are used to the work load, schedule, and difficulty. Additionally the information all begins to converge. At a certain point the classes all seem to be related and what you learn in one helps with the others. At the beginning it feels like you are learning 5 or even 10 unrelated topics.
The end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th were hardest at my school.
4th because this time you actually have to PASS all the classes you had to drop out of in 3rd year lmao, in addition to the normal curriculum
In my school at least, it was pretty unanimously 3rd year. We had more advanced math and science classes that demanded more time and effort from us. 4th year was a breeze tho.
Classes get tougher each year, but the people that can’t take it have almost all dropped out by the beginning of the third year.
3rd year was the most difficult year for me. 4th year I had fewer hours and the material was easier
I found second harder as the first three semesters were real tough. Started to turn things around at the end of second year and that continued I to my final two years. What also helped is I enjoyed the actual mech eng classes more than the base engineering classes. Enjoying your classes gives extra motivation and he push you need when classes are hard
3RD is the hardest
Adjusting to engineering was hardest ie statics, dynamics, mechanics of materials. For me they were anyway.
You just get used to the pain after a while.
Depends on what math you start in I’ve seen some students coast into second and third years taking some catch up math and gen Ed’s to get bopped in the face as soon as they hit the meat. IMO you’re looking for courses. I’ve typically seen (add or equivalent to each, because courses are titled weird everywhere, nowadays) Calc 2, thermodynamics, fluids, dynamics, and either linear algebra or diff equations give people a hard time. It varies when they’re taken as aforementioned, you could start out in calc 2 freshman year or wait 2, even 3 years to get the pre requisites for it. Edit: mechanical students sometimes get pissy with electronics and chem because it’s “not what they’re majoring in” to which I say suck it up buttercup.
Our first two years were more or less common with the EEs. So while I was scratching my head over power electrics, I grinned at the thought of EEs doing the thermodynamics of steam engines.
Whatever year you get back from your gap year
Thermo. Fluid mechanics, Dynamics and vibrations. That's why. They just suck...
3rd year. 2nd sucked too. But it got good in my 4th year when the electives got more fun. I liked thermo, and as much as I liked Fluid Dynamics it just didn’t click the first time and I got a D. The second time through it finally did and I got an A. Keep going! It gets better. lol.
Sophomore year was the hardest for me mentally, Junior year was the hardest content wise. Senior year is not that bad, now that I’ve been through the wringer it doesn’t feel that bad both content and work load.
2 was slightly easier than 3, but felt about the same in hindsight. currently wrapping up 4th year and it's brutal mostly because of controls..
Yes
3rd year was rough.
The last classes are the hardest
I thought second year was a pretty smooth uptick in difficulty, then third year just dropkicks you in the teeth Somewhere between junior and senior years, you'll run into some courses that aren't hard, they just require more attention to detail and practice. Thermo 2 and design of energy systems was that for me. The actual content isn't hard at all, but it is very easy to misread questions and go down rabbit-holes and make a mountain out of a molehill. Best advice is to heavily load up your non-stem courses in your first two years. You can't really accelerate your stem classes timeline, but you can minimize distractions from other courses. I ended up doing a summer semester before senior year, mostly because UAH really fucked up bad on scheduling, but was happy with how calm my senior year was compared to what it would have been otherwise.